The Price of Surviving
by replicasex
Summary: Ron muses on his memories and feelings after having lost everything and everyone he ever loved. Slash pairing RonxHarry. Warnings Angst, character death, adult themes, sexual situtations and coarse language. Please Read and Review!


Ron remembers a lot of things sometimes.

Like the lines on his, Hermione and Harry's faces in their graduation picture.

Ron remembers feeling true Fear for the first time by Harry's side. He remembers being glad Harry was there with him then.

Ron remembers all the little pranks they used to pull on each other during school.

Little things; like how Ron, when he was eleven, once put a cockroach cluster in Hermione's porridge to gross her out.

Ron remembers being yelled at for 2 hours straight afterward.

Ron remembers the relatively simple fun they all use to have, playing by the lake, or swapping chocolate frogs with one another under a tree.

Ron remembers the little looks he and Harry would share once in awhile. The looks that would turn Hermione's face to puzzlement, confusion and occasionally hurt.

Ron remembers not caring about that then.

Ron remembers the little looks and how that all he really cared was that while Harry smiled at him.

Gods, Ron remembers Harry. He remembers the way his unruly black hair would flair up in the wind, making him look like some kind of little boy gorgon with wild hair instead of snakes.

Ron remembers the sound of Harry's laugh. That pure little sound.

Ron remembers when the laugh changed from a sound of tinkling glass to something deeper.

Something older.

Something wearier.

Ron remembers when the laughing stopped all together.

Ron remembers how Harry smelled. He knows he can remember because he's holding one of Harry's shirts in his hand right now.

Ron remembers how Harry's hair felt: Far softer than such wild locks had a right to be.

Ron remembers what Harry's cock smelt like. A deep, almost spicy scent made all the more intimate by Harry's deep blush as Ron removed his pants.

Ron remembers how it tasted. Hot and hard and a little bit salty.

The taste of virility.

The taste of life.

Ron remembers the soft little keening noises Harry would make when he was about to come. He remembers how Harry would grip him so hard that he would leave bruises when his seed pulsed out of him in erratic jets.

Ron remembers Harry's body, but mostly Ron remembers Harry's eyes.

He remembers the way they lit up when Ron told a joke, the way they looked dejected and hurt when Ron had told him he believed Harry had put his name into the Goblet of Fire.

Ron remembers the way they looked when they made up.

Ron remembers the deep, almost dark look in them when they were glazed over with lust.

Ron remembers the fire in them when they were fighting. The untamed, almost wild look in his eyes as Harry cast spell after spell at Death Eaters.

Ron remembers being frightened at the look in them when Harry killed Bellatrix Lestrange. It wasn't the solemn, relieved look that Ron's eyes had held, oh no. It was a manic, gleeful look.

Ron had never seen Harry look so alive, so powerful, so... disturbing.

Ron remembers the shocked look Harry's eyes held a few moments later, after everything had calmed down.

He remembered seeing Harry's eyes look back at Bellatrix's mutilated corpse with dawning horror.

Ron thinks they all have to remember horrors. After all, isn't that the price of surviving?

Ron remembers Harry's face.

Ron remembers the wide smile it bore when they got a good mark back on their work. He remembers the determined look on it in their first year, when Harry told them he was going after Snape and You-Know-Who.

But they had been wrong. It hadn't been Snape at all. Ron had been wrong.

_Not For The Last Time…_

Ron remembers the first time he noticed Harry's' face as something other than the space between his best friend's ears.

Ron remembers the sweat on it as Harry brushed his cock over and over on Ron's.

Ron remembers when Harry's face stopped looking just a little too skinny and became gaunt, drawn, and worried.

And Ron remembers **that** day.

Oh yes, Ron remembers **that** day.

The day he saw Harry break down for the first (and last) time.

The day Hermione died.

Ron remembers the shock at hearing the news. They hadn't even been in contact for a few days as Hermione was on a mission, and they both fully expected to see her the next morning.

But Ron remembers Lupin apparating to the place where he and Harry were hiding.

Ron remembers the look on Lupin's face and he knew. He knew it had been her.

Ron doesn't remember the next few hours very well.

He remembers the funeral. The tiny, rushed little funeral.

Ron remembers the Grangers not really understanding what had happened to their daughter. Ron remembers them asking him what had happened. But he couldn't answer.

No one could, not really. It had been top secret after all.

Ron remembers waiting for the rest of the group to leave so he and Harry could have some time alone with her. They both had sat down on the dirt in front of her headstone.

Ron knew she wouldn't have liked it. It was far too white for her taste. She had always said white was nothing more than a lack of color.

Ron remembers thinking she was right.

But she would've liked what they had written for her. Just seven little words.

It was simple, really. As though it was the only thing that could be put on her grave.

"Always a Friend and Insatiable Book Fiend"

Hermione would've laughed a little and then try to cover it up with a cough. Ron was sure of it.

Ron remembers looking over at Harry.

He remembers seeing Harry cry. Tears were silently pouring down the sides of his face.

His eyes were unnaturally bright.

Ron remembers putting his arm around Harry's back. He remembers Harry turning into it and sobbing into his shoulder. Ron remembers sobbing in Harry's embrace, too. And Ron remembers what Harry had whispered into his ear.

"It ends," the whisper said, "now."

And that's why Ron can remember Harry tirelessly organizing raid after raid against the Death Eaters until; at long last, it came to the Final Battle.

Ron still can't remember much of that. All Ron can remember is a haze of magic and smoke, and a bright jet of light issuing out of Harry's wand.

The next thing Ron remembers is trying to get over to where Harry was. It was difficult.

Ron couldn't feel his legs very well.

But Ron remembers enough to catch a glimpse of Harry's rumpled wand arm and then…

And then it was Fade to Black.

'Magic Exhaustion', they called it.

Ron didn't really give a fuck what they called it.

Ron didn't care much about anything then. Ron just remembers the first ache of some feeling.

Ron didn't know what it was for awhile, but now he finally understands.

It was emptiness.

It was the hollow Harry had left. And Hermione.

But Ron didn't give up on life. He wasn't near as ungrateful as that. He would live life as best he could. As any survivor could anyway. Their sacrifice was worth that much, at least.

But sometimes, in the dark, Ron feels as if his memories are going to consume him.

Drag him down into the sticky black abyss that nightmares come from.

_All The Way Down…_

Because all Ron has now are memories.

And, when the sun is bright, Ron is glad that he at least has that, but...

In the dark of the little flat he and Harry had been living in. In that bed, whose sheets still almost smelled of Harry, in that bed, Ron would despise his memories.

Some nights, he wished he hadn't had them at all, some nights he resents Harry and the whole mess he brought with him.

Some nights, he hates Harry. For not being there, for making him so attached, and for making Ron love him – and for breaking Ron's heart.

But what he hates Harry for most in the deep, dark night is simple.

Ron hates Harry for leaving Ron alone. For dying and leaving Ron to keep on drudging on with life. And then Ron hates himself for thinking such things.

But Ron understands.

He's a survivor, and it's his duty to cling onto those memories, no matter how much they rip away at his mind at night.

He has a duty to **not** **forget.**

And that's all Ron could do anyway, even if he didn't want to.

Because that's all Ron has left now.

Memories.

Memories and the faint indentation of Harry's body in their bed, on the sheets that are losing his smell...

That's all he has... And that will have to suffice.


End file.
